If you’ve ever taken a close-up portrait of someone with your smartphone’s wide-angle lens, you might have noticed they look a little . . . off. Maybe their nose seemed a bit big, or their face was just a tad too wide. You weren’t imagining it. There wasn’t anything physically different about your friend that day. This weird distortion is just the effect wide-angle lenses have on photos of people....
Organize Your Files Getting all your files organized is a great project to take care of when you have extra time. After years of using a PC, most people end up with documents, photos, and video files on multiple storage devices. They might be scattered across old laptops, desktops, and a slew of external hard drives. Now’s a good time to centralize everything on a desktop PC, a heavy-duty external hard drive with lots of capacity, or even a network-attached storage (NAS) box....
Echo Dot (5th Gen) Echo Dot (5th Gen) with clock Echo (4th Gen) Echo Dot (3rd Gen, 2018 release) Echo Studio Echo Show 8 (2nd Gen, 2021 release) Echo Show 10 (3rd Gen) Echo Show 5 (2nd Gen, 2021 release) Echo Show 15 Echo Dot (Gen 3 with Clock) Echo Dot (Gen 4 with Clock) Echo Show 5, Echo (v3) Echo Dot Gen 4 Echo Input Echo Flex and Echo Show 8
When was the last time you cleared out your Mac’s storage? If the answer is anything short of weekly, you’d benefit from the simple-to-use sanitization of CleanMyMac X. Click a few buttons, get a clean Mac. Setup and User Interface: Neat and Tidy To set up CleanMyMac X, download the installer from MacPaw for free and drag the .dmg file to your Applications folder. Wait for it to finish installing, then run CleanMyMac X....
Ultra-Cheap DIY Projector Screen Marco writes in: Nice find, Marco! We’re currently in the process of building a screen using the technique we highlighted in this post—it’s a little more involved but still fairly inexpensive. Enjoy Easy In-Car Charging with a Powerjolt Nicki writes in with the following de-cluttering tip: And for only $7! By the time you read this, ours should already be in the mail! Nice find Nicki....
How to View Widgets on Mac Widgets in macOS Big Sur and higher are a part of the Notification Center, which no longer has its own icon in the menu bar. To access the Notification Center and widgets, click on the time in the top-right corner of the screen. If you’re using a Mac with a trackpad, a two-finger swipe-in gesture from the right edge of the trackpad will also open the Notification Center....
Docker lets software developers and DevOps engineers rapidly package applications for production. Docker containers operate largely independently of their host but aren’t impervious to security threats. Here’s how to audit your Docker Engine installation to ensure maximum security for your host and your workloads. Understanding Docker’s Architecture The first step to assessing Docker risks is to understand how the technology actually works. Docker’s powered by three distinct components: Docker Engine daemon – The background service which manages behind-the-scenes operations with containers and images....
Introduced in Android 11, the permission feature offers a handy option that automatically revokes permissions from an app you haven’t opened in a while. This setting can’t be applied globally throughout the OS, which means you will have to enable it separately for each app. We would recommend switching it on, especially for apps from developers you don’t trust. Here’s how to access it. Before we begin, note that every Android manufacturer tweaks the name of various menus and settings....
By default, Microsoft Edge uses Bing as its default search engine, but if you prefer something else—such as Google or DuckDuckGo—you can change it easily in the Settings menu. Here’s how, whether you’re running Edge on Windows 10, Windows 11, or Mac. Switch the Default Search Engine in Microsoft Edge First, open an Edge browser window. To use Google or another search engine as your default in Microsoft’s modern Edge browser, click the menu button (three dots) found in the top-right corner and then select “Settings....
Do you prefer a different color for an object in your photo? If so, use Adobe Photoshop’s Replace Color tool to change the color. It’s easy, and Photoshop does the heavy lifting for you. Here’s how to do it. RELATED: How to Change the Interface Background Color in Photoshop Replace an Object’s Color in Adobe Photoshop To show you how to replace an object’s color in Photoshop, we’ll use the following image....
Quest Controllers Have Surprising Battery Life One of the reasons Meta decided to forego an internal rechargeable battery is simple the Quest’s controllers use very little power. Using disposable alkaline batteries, their battery life is measured in months. This reduces or eliminates the need for controller battery charging unless you’re a truly heavy user of VR. Even then, you may never run into this issue. The folks over at Upload VR, who we assume use VR more than most people, only had to change controller batteries after three months!...
The latest version of the Xbox controller—the one included with the Xbox One S and the upcoming One X—includes Bluetooth! Microsoft finally included Bluetooth along with the older proprietary Xbox wireless connection, so Windows users can hook it up without an extra dongle. Here’s how to connect it to your Bluetooth-equipped laptop or desktop. What You’ll Need First of all, you need to see if your Xbox One controller is the updated kind or the older one that needs a dongle....
If you have any video s on your Mac that are particularly large in file size, then putting them on your iPad or iPhone can easily devour tons of space. You can convert videos on your Mac, however, using no additional software. If you’ve been around computers for any length of time, then you’re likely familiar with Apple’s QuickTime software. QuickTime has existed since the early 90s and still exists as OS X’s default video playing software....
You can remove or make changes to headers or footers on any page in Microsoft Word. This is handy if, for example, you want to hide the header or footer on a specific page. The process is a bit different if you want to delete a header or footer on the first page of your document or on any other pages. Here’s how it works. How to Delete a Header or Footer on the First Page of Your Document Very often, you won’t want your header or footer to show up on the first page of your document....
Are you tired of your iPhone or iPad “fixing” typos when they’re actually correct words, names, places, or terms? Then you should consider turning off auto-correct, which is an easy fix in Settings. Here’s how to do it. Why Does Auto-Correct Feel So Frustrating? When your iPhone or iPad corrects a word automatically, it’s drawing on both a dictionary and a predictive text algorithm that learns from how you type....
By default, Windows 10 displays notification pop-ups when the Store automatically installs app updates. You’ll see a notification saying an app “Just got updated, check it out.” If you’d rather not see those, here’s how to turn them off. For example, we saw this notification when Windows 10 automatically updated “Gaming Services,” a background service. There’s no way to “check out” a background service—unless you want to fire up a game from Xbox Game Pass for PC—so we decided to just disable these....
First, click Steam > Settings in Steam. In the Settings window that appears, click “In-Game” in the left sidebar. Click the “In-game FPS counter” box and select your preferred location. By default, it’s set to “Off” and won’t be displayed. You can choose Top-left, Top-right, Bottom-right, or Bottom-left to place the counter at any corner of your screen. By default, the FPS counter will be gray, which will make it blend in with many games....
Mac users who are running macOS Big Sur and higher can now enable or disable the startup sound with the flick of a switch. In case you are not familiar with the Mac startup sound, take a look at the following clip. Play Video You can enable or disable the startup sound for your Mac quite easily from the System Preferences menu. Click the Apple button from the left side of the Mac menu bar and choose the “System Preferences” option....
The vi editor is confusing if you’re not used to it. It takes a secret handshake to escape this application if you’ve stumbled into it. Here’s how to quit vi or vim on Linux, macOS, or any other Unix-like system. The Quick Answer If you’re in vi or vim and need to get out—with or without saving your changes—here’s how: First, press the Esc key a few times. This will ensure vi is out of Insert mode and in Command mode....
Android phones and tablets aren’t all kept up-to-date with the current version of Android. It’s often helpful to know which version of Android a specific phone or tablet is running so you can get help with something or determine whether a feature is present. The version of Android itself isn’t the only bit of information you might want to find. Your device name, manufacturer, and carrier also affect the software on your device....
